3

Is there a way to mount network drive on Windows with client-side read/write cache enabled? In my case drive is guaranteed to be mounted by 1 user, and performance is way more important than reliability in case of network/power fails.

I have full control over the Linux file server, so any services are possible (some special iSCSI or something else).

Just raw non-cached performance limited by Gigabit network is not enough.

3
  • Have you tried iSCSI? Have you tried anything? If you've tried some things, please let us know. May 17, 2015 at 17:01
  • @TonyHinkle You right, currently I am using Samba, but obviously windows client does not cache anything in this case. I was about to test Microsoft iSCSI initiator with iSCSI target on Ubuntu server - but found no mentions in the Internet on whether Microsoft iSCSI initiator allows to use cache. Maybe wrong keywords. May 17, 2015 at 20:29
  • Might be difficult, if not impossible, to find exactly what the MS iSCSI initiator does and doesn't do in that regard, but in general I would make the educated guess that it will be the fastest type of connection that you can make since iSCSI is heavily used for enterprise SAN attachments. I would be quite surprised if there is any way to do this that performs better than iSCSI. May 17, 2015 at 21:11

3 Answers 3

1
+250

You can achieve this by using AFS [OPEN AFS] which supports client-side caching

Links on How to Open AFS Linux file sharing protocols

1

What Windows version runs on your client? With Windows 7/8 Pro, you can use the "offline files" features to have a local, lazy-synchronized copy of the required files. Take in mind that "offline files" is know to be really lazy in synchronize changes, so you can use it only on files used by few peoples and with low change rate.

Another possibility is to have the file locally to the client, and periodically synch back them using a third part utility as Dsynchronize and similar (for a comprehensive list, see here). This approach is even more susceptible so split brain scenarios, so take care piking your poison.

0

Did you try to use NFS client on windows to access linux share ? nfs shares can be set to be async (asynchronous ) some sort of write back cache.

you need to modify the /etc/exports to add async option to the share example :

/tmp *(rw,async)

Speed will also depend on the underlying hardware of the storage server. You'll get better speed with battery backed write cache on raid controller

2
  • That is definitely a step forward (comparing to Samba), but it seems it still does not allow to enable client-side read caching. Write caching is nice though. May 18, 2015 at 18:00
  • There are some buffer sizes that can be tuned in nfs client for windows to optimize network speed. (monitis.com/blog/2013/05/31/…)
    – Max
    May 18, 2015 at 20:51

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .